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Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Crap Dad Or Great Dad?

I totally get that life doesn't have cheat codes. Totally. There are no shortcuts. No booster-packs. No level-ups. No invincibility toggle. (Of course, if you're a multi-billionaire you can ignore all that.) You makes the bed you've been given and you learns to lie in it.

You do the best you can with what you've got and try to learn the skills you need but don't currently have.

That's life. I get that.

It's a parent's job to encourage their kids to accept this and grapple with it from as early an age as possible so that they engage and stand a better chance of getting where they want to get quicker.

But Goddammit, 2 days of playing The Incredibles on PS2, trying to get to the robot battle level on behalf of my 4 year old (who only ever really wanted to play the robot level) was driving me frigging insane.

It's a brilliant game. Beautiful graphics. Superb playability.

But it's as hard as hell if you're not a full-time gamer. And the worst thing is, you fail and it sends you right back to the beginning of the level. I'd lost hours of my Christmas just getting to the halfway mark in level 3. The robot level was level 7. My 4 year old would be an old man before I got there and technology would have moved so far ahead that the PS2 would have become a museum piece.

I had 2 choices. Sit back and wait for natural obsolesence to claim me and the PS2 or do what normal, intelligent people the world over do.

Search Google for cheat codes.

I hit Google with gusto.

My 4 year old son is now happily pummelling the robot on level 7.

Life might not have cheat codes but sometimes, just sometimes, it's a parents job to cheat to make their kids happy.

I thought everyone cheated on these games...I thought that was the idea...to fit people for employment in our brave new world where it's not what you can do on your own, but what you say you can do by looking it up on the site on the internet written by a moron.

As you see, the Christmas spirit is going strong this side of the Atlantic...

Absolutely great dad. I remember years ago playing a Lara Croft game and we died for weeks on end before someone suggested there were cheat codes. We'd still be there now, falling down into the fiery abyss, if we hadn't had a nudge from a sensible dad.

ha, this post saved me hours of frustration. i'm not much of a gamer and hadn't eve considered that the cars2 wii game may come with cheats. Now my son can play around on the free play bits rather than having to go through the tedious 'lessons' which is all he wanted to do.